Today being the 20th anniversary of GNU, we thought it a fitting day to launch Irish Free Software Organisation. IFSO has been created by members of the fsfe-ie mailing list. In the last few months we've collaborated on the software patents issue, and Irelands implementation of the European Copyright Directive. The current focus of IFSO is political, but once the pressure eases off, we hope to begin encouraging Free Software adoption in education, government, charities, and businesses in Ireland.

Ireland was one of the last EU states not to have an organisation dedicated to Free Software, so we'll have a bit of catching up to do, but the high level of work on the fsfe-ie list has been encouraging.

Irelands six-month presidency of the EU began on January 1st 2004, so political lobbying in Ireland will have increased importance during this period. The pressure is on to get the software patentability directive finalised, and we'll also have the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive to deal with. IFSO might be just in time.

Once we have a proven track record, we hope to become an associate organisation of FSF Europe.